Encouraging Indonesian Maids and Filipino Maids to Have SMART Goals

Indonesian maids and Filipino maids leave their home country to work in Singapore for a reason. This is to help their families and save up for their future. Some of them plan to construct their house in the province, help their children finish college, or support a loved one’s medication. Whatever the reasons are, it is just right to help the live-in maid in Singapore accomplish her goal.

To make the outcome of the Indo maid or Filipino maid possible, she must have a SMART goal. For the live-in maid’s goal considered to be SMART, it needs to be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Specific
Being specific means detailed in the Indo maid or Filipino maid’s plan to achieve her goal. For this plan to be exact, she needs to answer 6 “WH” questions:

1) WHO are the people involved?
The family should be the primary people involved in the plan. When your goal is to help your child get a degree, she must see to it that she can play her role in that goal by studying well. This gives the helper and the daughter equal burdens to achieve the goal.

2) WHAT do you want to accomplish?
When you leave in Singapore as a helper, what would you like to accomplish? It would be better if you have a specific goal in mind even before you start your contract as a foreign domestic worker in Singapore.

3) WHERE should the goal be accomplished?
This is the part where you identify the location. As for the Indo maid or Filipino maid, she must work well in Singapore to accomplish her goal.

4) WHICH are the requirements and constraints?
What to do you need to sacrifice to achieve the goal? Indo maids and Filipino maids need to work hard and finish the contract to save up. What limits you to achieve the goal? Common answers will be homesickness, family challenges, or health. The live-in maid and her family can recall ways on how to overcome the constraints.

5) WHY do you need to accomplish your goal?
Be specific in answering this question. You can enumerate and write down your reasons in a notebook if you can. This way, you have something to come back to when you feel like giving up.

Measurable
The Indo maid or Filipino maid’s goal is measurable when she can see, hear, and or feel the results of her goal. She can divide her overall goal into smaller goals that sum up to the bigger goal. For the live-in maid to have her own house, for example, the first step should be getting a land first then, saving up to acquire the materials for the house and so on.

Measurable goals have physical manifestations, is clear, and objective. When the live-in maid has measurable goals, she can see the fruit of her labor in due time.

Achievable
It’s true that sometimes these goals seem impossible, but it can become reachable when given enough time and when the family works together to achieve this. After a while, this achievable goal will become closer to you, not because you’ve lessened it but because the family matched the goal with hardwork and perseverance. The goal can be considered achievable when the live-in maid and her family has the right attitude, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach it.

Relevant
How important is achieving that goal to you as an Indo maid or Filipino maid? Will this goal make your family’s life comfortable? If the goal is important to you that you can work away from your family for a few years, then your goal is considered relevant. Make sure you are working for something important to you when you work in Singapore as a live-in maid!

Time-bound
If the goal has no time frame, there is no sense of urgency. Before you know it, years already passed, and your goal is still far away. Make sure you have a timeline. If possible, write down your measurable goal in a notebook and make sure you reach it after given enough time.

As an Indo maid or Filipino maid in Singapore, ask yourself these questions:– After completing the 2-year contract in Singapore, how close are you to your goal? – How many years will you need to complete your goal? – Do you need to renew your contract to achieve it?

Discipline is a bridge between dreams and accomplishments! Remember, your goals will only remain ‘goals’ without self-discipline, grit, and perseverance. Always fix your eyes on your goals and make it come true.

We hope you learned something from this article. We wish you’d achieve your goals very soon!